The following description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
With declining global petroleum production, renewable bioenergy (e.g., biofuel) may be needed to sustain and generate economic growth. Bioenergy can be derived from biological sources via fermentation (enzymatic decomposition and utilization of carbohydrates, etc., by microbes). Unfortunately, it can take many hours for a microbe to ferment.
Various factors can affect the rate of fermentation in yeast cells and other microbes. These factors include the type of carbohydrate (rate of CO2 production), concentration of carbohydrate, concentration of salt, osmolarity (total concentration of sugars or salts in the fermentation solution), ethanol concentration, pH, and temperature, among others.
Some have experimented with methods of increasing fermentation rates (i.e., growth and metabolism rates), but have apparently failed to increase growth/metabolic rates by more than a modest amount. Some prior experiments relate to electromagnetic biostimulation. See e.g., Electromagnetic Biostimulation of Living Cultures for Biotechnology, Biofuel and Bioenergy Applications, by Ryan W. Hunt et al., Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2009, 10, 4515-4558; doi:10.3390/ijms10104515. Unfortunately, Hunt et al. and others apparently fail to teach, motivate or suggest an apparatus, systems or methods of bioelectromagnetic stimulation of microbes for production of biofuels or bioenergy on a commercial scale.
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Thus, there is still a need for improved apparatus, systems and methods of biostimulation of microorganisms to increase their fermentation rates for production of bioenergy.